By, The Curator
Beginning small is the safest way to start your clothing brand. The majority of people who are starting brands do not have an audience to sell to yet. Since no one is aware that you even exist, why would you spend a ton of money on getting one hundred shirts printed? That’s a really big risk, especially for someone with little business experience and no pre-established market.
I write this because I’ve experienced both sides of the dagger. I’ve started small and I’ve attempted to start big. Both had routes had their ups and downs. When I was releasing promotional merch for my first business I started small. I chose to do a run of about thirty t-shirts more or less. This was because I didn’t have a large amount of money at the time to invest and it was my first time having shirts produced. However, when it came to starting my clothing brand I tried to start big since I did have the money.
My Experience
When the promo shirts from my first business released I initially had trouble selling them. I was fourteen and knew nothing about pricing, whether my product was quality or not, and how to advertise it. Fortunately enough I started to figure it out and decided to lower the price and market them more. I began going to school with a full size run of shirts in my backpack and started hustling them between classes from my locker. The lower price attracted more customers. The sudden increase in customers lead to students wearing their shirts around school more as well. This paired with the story that I was selling these out of my backpack attracted even more customers. Eventually I finally sold out. I repeated this system for two more runs of shirts with success for the most part.
Round Two
When I was starting my second business, a clothing brand, I had a large amount of cash set aside from my previous business to reinvest. I figured “I have all this money, I might as well go big or go home”. I started designing and planning a complete collection to release and also became a bit reckless with my spending. Instead of continuing to be conservative I started throwing large amounts of money out the window for things and services that I definitely could have acquired at a cheaper price if I had been strategic. My first attempt at that business did not succeed and I eventually came deathly close to going broke.
Learn From This
Launching your brand with a bang may seem like a good idea at first, especially if you have the money. Unfortunately it is completely pointless because you will have little to no one to sell to. Plus it will end up taking a long period of time to clear your stock if you even get close to accomplishing that. Just because you have the resources at your disposal doesn’t mean you should utilize them all.
Unfortunately for me, I didn’t use what I learned when I released promo merch for my first business. If I had continued to use the strategy of starting small until the brand was big enough, I wouldn’t have failed. The main reason why I wanted to go big was because I was impatient and I wanted results as quickly as possible.
How I’d Go About It
I recommend that you begin with a run of about twenty to thirty shirts with a solid design and one to two color print. If those sell out quickly then that’s great. Just restock or drop a new design. When it comes to starting a new brand it is better to spend a little and profit slowly than spend a lot and lose quickly. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.
By doing smaller runs of shirts you will also have more chances to test your market. You’ll learn more about which sizes are the most popular and what type of designs or release methods sell quicker. It is very important to learn information like this early on so that you don’t make bigger mistakes like ordering too many 2XL’s down the line.
Take This How You Want
In the end of the day you choose to run your brand how you’d like to. If you want to take the risk and go big I’m not stopping you, I wish you the best of luck. I just ask that you keep in mind the benefits of starting small because as I have learned and as many others have learned, it is the safest and most efficient way to start a brand. Don’t make the mistakes I did.
Listen to the full article here:
The Curator 
Leave a comment